Stepping up to troupe's high-energy style

February 19, 2006|JEREMY D. BONFIGLIO Tribune Staff Writer

Gregory Cox doesn't know how he'll pull it off. Nothing he's done in the West End or at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School has prepared him for this. Since joining Actors From the London Stage, a traveling ensemble of five veteran British performers, he's had to step up his game. "It's a fantastic challenge really," Cox says from a hotel room in Charlotte, N.C., the company's current tour stop for "The Merchant of Venice." "In most productions, you say your lines and you get a bit of a break backstage, but we're involved all the time." That's because Cox and his four cohorts perform all 20 parts in William Shakespeare's play, which opens Wednesday at the University of Notre Dame's DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts. The three-date run is the featured event of this year's Spring ArtsFest series, titled "Shylock: A Heritage of Hate." For Cox, a newcomer to the Actors From the London Stage, that has meant getting in touch not only with Antonio, but with the characters Gratiano, Tubal and Lancelot Gobbo as well. "It's a great challenge for an actor to make all of them seem real for an audience," Cox says of his four roles. "You've got to make it seem possible and quite relish it in a sense." Cox joins Tim Hardy (Shylock, Old Gobbo, Lorenzo); Isabel Pollen (Portia, Solanio, Balthasar, Jailer, Leonardo); Christopher Staines (Bassanio, Morocco, Arragon, Duke); and Louise Yates (Nerissa, Jessica, Salerio, Stephano) in Shakespeare's tale of mistrust and revenge built around the most famous collateral in literature: a pound of flesh. Bassanio needs a loan of 3,000 ducats so that he can properly woo Portia, a wealthy heiress. To get the necessary funds, Bassanio entreats his friend, Antonio. Antonio's money, unfortunately, is invested in merchant ships that are presently at sea; however, to help Bassanio, Antonio arranges for a short-term loan of the money from Shylock, a Jewish money-lender. When pressed, Shylock, who has a deep-seated hatred of Antonio, strikes a bargain: the 3,000 ducats must be repaid in three months, or Shylock will exact a pound of flesh from Antonio. "I think Shakespeare in fact is casting a critical eye on an issue we have to be honest about," Cox says. "It has great contemporary resonance. How do we deal with a minority in society? The problem is, there's quite a bit of Jew-baiting in the play itself, but at the same time, we can look back on the Christian characters and see them as unsympathetic, really." In residence at the University of Notre Dame, Actors From The London Stage produces two plays each academic year. The company tours about 20 college campuses around the country, where actors perform and lead a weeklong acting workshop for students. "You really go in as an educator as well as an actor," Cox says. "I've never really done that before. It's really excited my interest in teaching." Onstage, the company will tackle "Merchant" in its signature low-tech, high-energy style -- few props, no costumes or elaborate sets, just the essential elements: actors, audience, story. "It's amazingly insightful work," AFTLS associate director Gareth Armstrong says. As part of the Spring ArtsFest, Armstrong will perform his one-man show "Shylock" as well. "It will be as true to the text," he says of AFTLS' "The Merchant of Venice," "as anything you've seen." Staff Writer Jeremy D. Bonfiglio: jbonfiglio@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6244